Page 69 of The Gathering Storm

“I’ll have my lawyer contact Anya early next week to draw up the contract,” she said.

Wilhelmina’s mouth trembled once, then firmed, and her expression blanked. “Don’t bother. I have no son to negotiate for.”

Casey sucked in a breath, and Troy said, “Willie, don’t,” but his mother shook his hand off and turned her back on Will.

Something inside him died in that moment, hope that she’d finally see him as the man he was, and had been for well over a decade, or maybe the last yearning a son had to earn his mother’s respect.

Whatever brand of hurt it was, he tucked it away. There’d be plenty of time later to examine it in full. He pulled Sigrid into the curve of his body, shielding her from his mother’s hatred the only way he could. “Casey, you know what to do at The Omega. Dad.”

Troy shook his head as he stepped forward and clapped a hand to Will’s shoulder, and the embrace said everything neither man could say, sharing a love so deep, words could never fully express it.

It’ll be ok.

Will wasn’t so sure. He nodded once, then opened the door and lead Sigrid away from the family he’d once thought so strong, only death could tear it apart.

Rebecca stood on the mat facing her opponent, the leader of the Shadow Enemy, if only in name. A judge stood to her left, and hadn’t that been a hard task, finding someone among the People who would fairly judge a challenge involving young Lukas? Who among them did not hate the Shadow for the brutal slaughter of centuries past, for the deaths gouged out of the People’s number? Family, friends, loved ones, all sacrificed in a feud stretching back millennia.

She’d found neutrality in an unlikely source suggested by Hawthorne: The Councilmember’s house-bound niece, a former Councilmember, and a member of the subversive Eternal Order, Isolde Zellinger.

Never would Rebecca have trusted such a Daughter to judiciously mediate a dispute between younglings over a beloved toy, let alone a challenge of such import the outcome could reverberate through both the People and the Shadow for generations to come. Yet here they were, facing that exact situation.

Isolde stepped forward, a hanbo in each hand, and began the proceedings. Rebecca forced her attention there, on the ceremonial rigmarole so necessary for the maintenance of tradition. She ached for it to be over and done with, so she could return to her husband’s side and the comfort of his love.

When had she become so tired of it all, of her duty to the People, of the traditions handed down from time immemorial, of the fight she herself often spearheaded?

The Shadow approaches and the Blade must yield

She staunched the shudder automatically rising within her, but only just. The Woman spoke true, of that Rebecca had no doubt, but today was not the day for the Blade’s demise. Lukas would never dare go beyond the bounds of the challenge and kill her, not when his very life would be forsaken at the hands of the People assembled as witnesses.

Not when his beloved nephew’s life was at risk.

And Lukas was weakened today by his recent ordeal at the hands of his brother and uncle. He lacked the strength to win the challenge, let alone to kill a Daughter of Rebecca’s skill.

No, today was not the day the Woman had foreseen. That time rested in the future, beyond the here and now that must first be dealt with.

Lukas restated the challenge he’d issued to her only days past, Isolde laid out the standard terms of contact and handed them the hanbos, and Rebecca dutifully tested the one given her. She fought today not for herself, but on behalf of the People, something she would do well to remember.

Rebecca finished testing the hanbo and nodded at Isolde, then waited politely until Lukas did the same.

“Begin,” Isolde said, and her voice held the regal ring of authority it always had, free of the imprisonment she’d faced over the past few months.

Lukas nodded at Rebecca, a respectful salute. He rotated his wrist, swinging the hanbo in a small circle, and stepped cautiously to his left, his gaze fixed on Rebecca.

Slow and easy then. She mirrored his steps, carefully tracking his movements around the mat. Whatever his strategy, it was obscured by the hard set of his blue eyes in a face so cold, it could’ve been chiseled from ice. It wasn’t determination she saw there so much as grit, and that worried her a bit. Determination was fueled by needs of the moment, but grit was in it for the long haul. Grit created future goals and stuck by them long enough to see them accomplished.

What was Lukas hoping to gain here? What was his long-term goal?

Nala.

The answer hit her even as he swung out and swiped the end of the hanbo through the air a mere half inch in front of her stomach. She swiped the testing blow away, unrattled by the almost leisurely swish as it passed by.

Was he toying with her?

She lunged into a thrust aimed for the soft part of his torso, just below where the two sides of his ribcage met. He stepped back on one foot, dodging the blow, and pushed the tip of her hanbo aside with his free hand, then swiveled around and swung the hanbo in a backhanded arc toward her exposed ribs.

Not toying, then.

She spun away from the blow, out of reach, and settled into a ready stance. This time, he mirrored her, even going so far as to switch the hanbo to his opposite hand, so that they were, in a way, exact mirror images. Light and dark, good and evil, or perhaps both were subjective. Perhaps he thought himself the good here, the light, despite his role as the lead of an organization that had, for millennia, tried to eradicate her kin one brutal murder at a time.

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